Primary Treatment and Survival Outcomes in Oropharyngeal Cancer / 대한이비인후과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Oropharyngeal cancer is one of those cancers with increasing incidence, and the therapeutic choices remain controversial. This study aims to evaluate the influence of changes in the primary treatment on the prognosis of oropharyngeal cancer patients. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: A total of 135 patients treated for oropharyngeal cancer in a single institution from 2004 to 2017 were analyzed in this study. Disease-free survival rate and the 3-, 5-year survival rates were calculated according to various radical primary treatments, which included concurrent chemo-radiation or radiation therapy, and surgery. Other outcomes including functional outcomes and treatment duration were also reported. RESULTS: The proportion of patients who were no-evidence-of-disease state at the last follow up was 97.8% for the group who underwent surgery as radical primary treatment, followed by concurrent chemo-radiation or radiation therapy (84.1%). The five-year survival rate was 0.7963 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.6746–0.8765] for the concurrent chemo-radiation or radiation therapy group and 0.9488 (95% CI 0.8093–0.9870) for the surgery group. When surgery was chosen as radical primary treatment for appropriately selected patients, approximately 30% of the patients could avoid radiation therapy. Gastrostomy or admission for supportive care as functional outcome showed no significant difference between treatment groups. CONCLUSION: Our results show various treatment outcomes depending on the radical primary treatment. These results can be used in clinical decisions and patient counselling.